The Eltham we have lost, part 2........ The old lane by the National Schools, 1908

Another of those pictures of Eltham’s past which need no comment

This is the old lane by the National Schools as it was in 1908.  The lane is now Archery Road and 'One acre Allotments' was on the right.









Picture; the old lane,  from The story of Royal Eltham, R.R.C. Gregory, 1909 and published on The story of Royal Eltham, by Roy Ayers, http://www.gregory.elthamhistory.org.uk/bookpages/i001.htm

Lost and forgotten streets of Manchester ..... nu 65 the vanished 22 houses and 81 people

I can’t think anyone would mourn the disappearance of Back Canal Street and Little David Street.

In the space where two streets existed, Chorlton Street, 2016

In 1841 81 people lived in 22 of the 28 back to back properties which had been built as one up one downs at the beginning of the 19th century.

Here lived a mix of families who earned their living as labourers, textile workers with the odd craftsmen.

So few back to backs have survived that it is difficult sometimes to realize how small these properties were and how overcrowded they must have been.

Suffice to say that the width of this stone fronted building on Chorlton Street took in the combined width of Little Canal Street and the back to back houses.

The two streets in 1849

And I think we can be even more precise and calculate that the width of the street would be the distance from the edge of the brick building to right side of the doorway and what was left would be the width of the houses.

Looking at the census records for the June of 1841 reveals that some of the houses were occupied by just one person while others contained four to five people and one had nine individuals crammed in to its two rooms.*

But those with single occupants were in the minority and the general picture is one of overcrowding made worse by what appears to be the provision of only one lavatory.

The sound of young voices in Little David Street, 1841

The largest single age group were the young with 18 out of 52 in Back Camp Street under the age of 10, and 11 out of 29 in Little David Street.

All of which must have been a constant worry for parents with the canal and an arm of the canal surrounding the properties on two sides.

And it may well have been the canal which did for our 28 houses.  Maps from the 1890s show they no longer existed and the 1863 directory lists a warehouse on the site which may even have been there by the 1850s.

So a short life for those two streets.

Location; Manchester

*Census, Little David and Back Camp Streets, Enu 10, 7-8, London Road, Manchester, 1841

Pictures; the site of Little Canal and Little David Streets, 2016, from the collection of Andrew Simpson and streets in 1849, from the OS map of Manchester & Salford 1844-49 courtesy of Digital Archives Association,  http://digitalarchives.co.uk/

Tracking the age of your house in Chorlton

Now one of the first golden rules of research is that you never turn down any information you are given.

It might not fit with what you are doing but from experience it will sometime in the future.

Age of Buildings of chosen area

All of which is why I leapt at the offer from Phil Portus of an undergraduate project he undertook on Chorlton in the summer of 1968.*

Phil was in his first year of a Geography and Geology BSc and set out to answer the question “to what extent did Urban growth after 1850 proceed within the physical framework of pre-existing patterns of land ownership” which involved using the tithe map of 1844 and comparing it with OS maps of the period from the 1840s across the rest of that century and into the next.

The final piece of work included his written answer along with a series of beautifully drawn maps and overlays showing land ownership in 1844, the age of buildings from before 1844 through to 1955 and two detailed overlays of land ownership and the age of properties on the northern side of Beech Road from St Clements to Barlow Moor Road and back to Hardy Lane.

What is all the more remarkable is that this of course was done before the internet which meant that there was no recourse to online searches and pretty much everything was drawn from documents held in the archives and local history library down at the Ref.

And judging by his conclusions also involved a lot of field work out on Beech Road and the neighbouring roads observing the properties and matching their position against the field boundaries and the tithe plan.

All of which contributes to our knowledge of the history of Chorlton.

Detail from Age of buildings in chosen area

But like all research it also offers up unexpected information and prompts for further research.

So while I knew that the social housing which stretches south down Barlow Moor Road dated from before the Second World War I had never researched it in enough detail to come up with an end date of 1923.

Likewise Phil confirmed what I always suspected that small pockets of infill development around Ivy Green were undertaken between 1939 and 55.

Which just then left those unintended consequences, like the date that Church Road became Chequers.

Now I am not alone in spotting just how many name changes were made, and plenty of people have their own personal one, but I had always been puzzled as to when this might have happened.

The logical date was when we voted to join the city in 1904 but the changes were much later with people suggesting the late 1960s or early 70s and Phil at least has confirmed that Church Road was still in use in 1968.
That said Stephen has commented, "I can't agree with the idea that Chequers Road only got that name as late as 1968. I was at St John's RC primary school from 1955 to 1962, and it was Chequers Road then. 

Maybe some locals still referred to the old name. I still think of Zetland Road as Holland Road, it's old name, as the name change took place after I had ceased to use it on a daily basis to get to and from school."

So there you have it, a piece of research undertaken forty-nine years ago which  is still doing the business but may need a revisit.

*Salford Project, http://www.philportus.co.uk/salford-project/

Picture; overlay of properties on the north side of Beech Road, 1968 courtesy of Phil Portus

Ignoring Eric ….

It does seem pretty much a given that any conversation about vegetarian food draws down a torrent of unsolicited, banal, and even hostile comments.

As if the very act of eschewing meat and fish is a threat to civilization and a direct affront to bacon lovers everywhere.

At its mildest it focuses on flatulence but ascends though the assertion that “it isn’t natural”, to visions of Armageddon with the end of all cows, pigs, and chickens from the face of the earth, and the collapse of  the entire world economy .

Nor does this wail of abuse have to be precipitated by the debate.  

It is enough on a slow news day for someone to launch into a diatribe, usually at the end of a day cataloguing their dried worm collection.

Now do they feel threatened, embarrassed or just have not thought much beyond their plate of meat and two veg?

On my part I don’t evangelise I just prefer not to eat something that had a face, and so if Eric wants to enjoy a steak, preceded by a prawn cocktail with a little side dish of fried sweet bread and black pudding that’s his choice.  Trouble is Eric and his pals won’t leave me to make my own choice.

And here I have to say this isn’t a crusade, it’s just another history post, and with that in mind it is worth remembering that all through history humanity has not eaten that much meat, which in most cases was not by choice, but was restrained by lack of money and the cost of meat.  Afterall then and now it takes a considerable amount of grass, and cereal to feed an animal.

So while aristocrats might employ chefs to come up with ever more sophisticated plates of meat and fish, the men and women who grew the food in the fields ate variations of porridge, and veg.

Always remember while the Norman overlords ate pork, their English serfs raised pig.

As a result, most of the world’s cuisines were heavily orientated toward meatless dishes and reflected a more imaginative approach to what makes a meal.

Yesterday with some fine-looking tomatoes and green beans which had to be used up I cooked a simple starter.

And varied the meal the following day by leaving out the green beans but adding olives, capers and bit of garlic to a plate of linguine.  Pretty much made in the time it took the pasta to cook.

Simple and quick.

And so, starts a series on historic meals without meat.

Pictures;  Dishes to brass off Eric, 2026 from the collection of Andrew Simpson

Recreating the lost Well Hall House with Edith Nesbit

Well Hall House from Well Hall Road, 1909

Well Hall House has passed out of living memory.

It was built in 1733, was home to some Eltham notables and was demolished in 1930.

It stood between Well Hall Road and the moat and replaced the Tudor manor house which Sir Gregory Page knocked down to build his fine 18th century house.

But a building which dominated Well Hall, and was known by many seems to have left little trace.  There are a few photographs a handful of maps and the land records of the tithe schedule.

Well Hall, 1874

Together these show a tall building which ran to three floors, had a wing on each side and was set in an estate of about 33 acres including a front garden, a walled garden to the south, the moat , three ponds, a stream and much meadow and pasture land along with the farm buildings which included the present Tudor Barn.

A little to the north were Well Hall Cottages which in the 1840s had been a complex of six properties but by 1911 seem to have become a farm house and one cottage.

But Well Hall house was sufficiently enclosed that I doubt the cottages proved much of an intrusion, and so within its grounds the occupants of the big house got on with their favoured lives wandering the fourteen rooms and looking out east across the fields and west across their gardens.

Judging by the photographs I am not sure it was a place that would have caught my fancy.  It was tall and the design fitted that classical style of balance so that what you saw on one side was replicated on the other.

All of which is not much for a house which stood for just under two hundred years, but as these things work there is one other source of information, and that comes from Edith Nesbit, the novelist who lived in the house from the late 19th century into the twentieth.

Contained in some of her books are references to Eltham, Well Hall and the house itself.  And of these it is The Red House written in 1902 which provides some wonderful insights into the place.

The back of Well Hall House from the Paddock and moat, 1909

The book itself is a light account of the lives of a newly married couple who inherit the Red House and choose to live there.

In the course of the year that follows Ms Nesbit describes in some detail the house, its gardens, the nearby cottages with references to the village the parish church and offers up walk on parts for both Woolwich and Blackheath.

But it is the house which draws you in, with its panelled rooms, great hall, vaulted cellars and kitchen still with the equipment which would have been in use through the 18th and 19th centuries.

Added to this there are observations about the rooms which had been much messed about by changing fashion.

The front of Well Hall House, date unknown

Now like all such descriptions I suspect there will be points when the Red House departs from the actuality of the original, but I am confident that there is more that will have been the same than less.

This in turn stretched to her descriptions of the gardens, including the walled one, the presence of the railway with its station and embankment and the parish church.

Edith and her husband Hubert had taken on the house and 7 acres of the land.

Of course there may be more sources of information sitting in the Greenwich Heritage Centre and in the letters of the people who visited Edith and her husband at Well Hall which included the Webb’s, H.G.Wells and Bernard Shaw but in the meantime the Red House seems to have done the old place proud.

Location; Well Hall, London


Pictures; Well Hall House circa 1909,  from The story of Royal Eltham, R.R.C. Gregory, 1909 and published on The story of Royal Eltham, by Rob Ayers, http://gregory.elthamhistory.org.uk/bookpages/i001.htm and Well Hall House, from The Edith Nesbit Society, http://www.edithnesbit.co.uk/ map of Well Hall from the OS Map of Kent 1858-74

The humble outside lavatory ….. here in Chorlton ….. wondering how many have survived

Now for anyone who grew up or lived in a 2 up two down property, this brick structure will be familiar.

Declan's brick structure, 2021

And for those who  wonder what I mean by a two up two down property, they were the basic model for many working class homes in the 19th century, and consisted of two downstairs rooms, one of which would be the kitchen with two upstairs room.

You can still find them across the country in our towns, cities,  and villages and with a bit of tender care and attention still do the business.

You entered directly off the street into the front room, although at the posher end of the market, there would be a small glass vestibule which took up a little of the space in the front room but did afford a bit of privacy.

New Gates, typical Manchester Court, 1908

At the rear was a small yard complete with an outside lavatory, which before mains sewage were supplied with a pail which would be collected by the night soil man.

Ours in Ashton Under Lyne still retained an aperture in the back wall where the pail could be left for collection.

And that is where Declan Maguire comes into the story, because yesterday he sent over this picture, adding, “Hi Andrew, after your article on the few air raid shelters still surviving in back yards, here’s a photo of another backyard survivor from Victorian times. 

I wonder how many houses in this area still have one of these? 

I can think of times when I was sharing my home with teenager ‘bathroom blockers’ when it could have been useful for me.

I wonder how would they be referred to in estate agent pitches; “many original Victorian features”? “bathroom and second separate toilet?

It would  be interesting to find out if many have survived locally, whether in working order, or as tool/storage sheds. 

I’m old enough, (born in 1960 in Belfast, another red brick Victorian city), to have used these during family visits to grandparents and other relatives. I can remember the new WC being installed inside my maternal grandparent’s 3 storey terraced home around 1970. The photo was taken in one of the side streets off Sandy Lane, the house is currently up for sale & unoccupied”.

Whiteman's Yard Derby, 1882-83

And being a tad older, I remember visiting my grandparent home in Derby which was a conversion from two one up and one down properties into a single home.  The rear of the house had opened up to a small shared courtyard where there were several of these little brick privies.

Manchester Corporation had been in the forefront of eliminating the one up one down as early as the 1850s, along with cellar dwellings.  Other cities like Leeds tolerated the one up and one down into the 20th century.

As for our humble brick lavatory it would be the coming of mains water that would banish the weekly visit of the night soil man.

That said in 1894 in Manchester,  “there were 24,300 water closets,  78,486 pail closets, and 35, 700 midden privies, and even by 1927 there were 230,046 water closets, and still 1,108 pail closets and thirty-five privies”.*

All of which beings us back to Declan’s brick “outhouse”, and Chorlton-cum-Hardy.  By the time his old house and most of two up two down stock were built in Chorlton in the late 19th century, the township had mains sewage.

But this was a new thing.  The first pipe bringing in mains water arrived in 1962 at the request of 16 ratepayers living on Edge Lane, while the local sewage works was only developed in the 1870s.  Before then people used privies, and obtained their drinking water from wells, or surface water.  

So when Stockton Range was built on Edge Lane, they were built with interior wells.

But the great housing boom which started in the early 1860s, and the much bigger provision of houses from the 1880s was only possible because of the arrival of piped drinking water and an effective sewage system.

Some historians have pointed to the arrival of the railway in 1880 and the corporation tram two decades later, but without the basics of water and sewage it is difficult to see how that housing boom could have taken off.

Pictures; A little brick outhouse, 2021, from the collection of Declan Maguire, Whiteman's Yard, detail of the OS Map of Derby 1882-83, supplied by Derby Local Studies Library http://www.derbyshire.gov.uk/leisure/local_studies/  and New Gates, 1908, m8316,  courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass

*E. M. Brockbank, The Book of Manchester & Salford, 1929, quoted by John J Parkinson- Bailey, Manchester An Archetctural History, 2000, page 40

Walking the city of Manchester in 1841 .......... courtesy of Mr B Love

Now I bet the Handbook of Manchester would have caused a stir amongst the elegant tea rooms and learned libraries of London back in 1842 when it was published.* 

After all our city was as Asa Briggs said “the shock city of the Industrial Revolution" and as such was on the itinerary of both British and foreign commentators keen to know what was going in the North.

And it is worth giving the full title of the book because it lays out just what it is about  The Handbook of Manchester, containing statistical general information on the trade, social condition, and institutions of the Metropolis of Manufactures: was published in 1842.

It was according the Preface a “new and it is presumed, a greatly improved edition of ‘Manchester As It Is,’ – published in 1839.  

Considerable pains have been taken to render this volume one of the most complete of its kind.”

And here are chapters on all the major manufacturing industries, descriptions of the population of the city and surrounding towns and townships and much on the conditions of those who lived here.

It is in short a wonderful bit of history and sits alongside those others by Dr Kay, Mr Engels and many more.

It praises the beauty of many of the new buildings and the industrious nature of its residents but has a keen social eye, commenting that the river Medlock and the river Irk “are made extensively available for manufacturing purposes; hence their waters are thick, black and filthy.”

And for me it will be when Mr Love explores the lives of the cotton workers, along with chapters on the charities, the social scene and crime when the book becomes fascinating.

So there you have it and I am thinking there will be plenty more to come.  The Female Penitentiary and the information on aspects of the city's population were drawn from random and just caught my eye.

Location; Manchester 1841

Picture; Female Penitentiary Emdben–place, Greenheys, 1841, and data from the 1841 Census represented in The Manchester, Handbook, 1842 

*The Handbook of Manchester containing statistical general information on the trade, social condition, and institutions of the Metropolis of Manufactures: being a second edition of Manchester as it is, by B. Love, member of the Literary and Philosophical Society of Manchester, 1842   And is available as a download from Goggle Books

*Victorian Cities, Asa Briggs, 1963